I can understand why you might not head over to Film Junk for enlightenment. Sure they run a great site and have the best film related podcast on the Internerd, so I understand that you might not realize they have a slumbering giant just beginning to awaken in Cantankerous. With only three episodes produced to date Cantankerous is a podcast still trying to discover just what it will cover, but what it has delved into is outstanding.

The duo behind Cantankerous is Jay Cheel, the sardonic film snob who just might be suffering from Munchausen syndrome, and Reed Farrington, the Star Trek uber-nerd who engages completism at warp factor 9. Apart they are capable of entertaining you, but together they form an intoxicating mix that will thrill and mystify you with each passing episode.

And while Jay typically dominates most of Film Junk’s podcast, it is Reed that makes Cantankerous destination radio. In episode one you discover his Kermit the Frog impression that only works when no one else is around, or marvel at his learning of the space shuttle Columbia disaster four years after it occurred.

But that would be outdone in episode two when Reed admits that his life is incomplete because he has never suffered from food poisoning. He then follows this up with a lecture on his disappointment at how people are not attempting to become more intelligent and uses his love of the film Soylent Green, which he views as a piece of high brow science fiction that will challenge people, as the basis for his argument.

But both episodes pale in comparison to the third, where we learn that the last hardcover book Reed purchased was the Joan Collins biography simply because she talks about her experiences guest starring on Star Trek. From there we learn about how Reed becomes confused at why white actors shouldn’t play other races in films, his short lived attempt at making his own cooking show entitled Cooking with Gerry, and Reed’s frustration with Dawson’s Creek inconsistent use of theme songs on the various DVD sets. But the true apex of the show is when we learn of Reed’s ongoing attempts to archive the Internet by using a video camera to tape it.

That Cantankerous continues to top its own style of unbridled brilliance in every show, drawing the listener ever closer to understanding the complex world Reed Farrington lives in, it quickly becomes evident that this podcast offers up the possibility of a window into a fantasy world that you never would have dreamed existed.

So go on, what are you waiting for?

A co-worker recently purchased a Dairy Queen chicken fingers basket for her lunch and brought it in to work. If you have never had a DQ chicken fingers basket I recommend trying one. Not highly recommended mind you, but if you are looking for something relatively inexpensive and borderline tasty you can do much worse.

But what interests me most about the DQ chicken fingers basket is the make up of it. Now of course you get chicken fingers, your choice of 4 or 6 depending on how much of a glutton you are. Me, I’m a 6 finger fatty, but that is straying from my rather ambiguous point.

Now along with the chicken fingers you of course get your choices of sauces to eat them with. By my last count you had something in the neighborhood of 239 different varieties. I’m a honey mustard man myself but occasionally dabble with barbecue sauce or ranch if I am feeling particularly saucy that meal. Along with the fingers and the sauce you get what appears to be a rather large fistful of fries artfully tossed in the general direction of the basket. I’m sure by this time you have absolutely no idea where I am going with any of this, let alone how I could possibly tie it in with my latest review of Time After Time, but I promise you, my thesis shall be made clear quite soon.

Now we come to the pièce de résistance of the meal which, rather ironically, is a piece of toast. Now I don’t know why they would include a piece of toast with the meal, or why they choose to butter it beforehand, but dammit if it isn’t just about the perfect compliment to the meal. In spite of being completely ridiculous, and improbably illogical, it rather simply makes the entire meal work.

And in light of such a ridiculous combination of foodstuffs somehow conjoining to create a meal far greater then the sum of its parts, it is my hope that you see the connection to tales like Time After Time, in which several notable characters are combined in an unlikely, if not utterly ridiculous, situation in the hopes their struggles will entertain the audience.

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